Like The Star He Wasn't
by The Sugarfaerie
Summary: There were times when Mark didn't like his best friend. Of course, not everyone's best friend was an electric guitar god with a gravelly voice and a drug problem. PreRENT, Roger/April, shades of Mark/Roger


This was my submission for the Oscar Wilde Quotation Challenge on livejournal. My quotation was: _Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious._

Disclaimer: I own nothing, and that includes the titles of songs and the occasional song lyric. All belong to their respective owners.

**Like the Star He Wasn't**

**i. Sounds of Silence**

He would never admit it, but there were times when Mark didn't like his best friend. He supposed it was only natural, after all two people couldn't be expected to get along all the time, and he was pretty sure that occasional arguments among friends were even considered beneficial.

Of course, not everyone's best friend was an electric guitar god with a gravelly voice and a drug problem, but Mark found through experience that it wasn't beneficial to dwell on such details.

Yet details were the filmmaker's stock in trade, the endless provider of raw material begging to be cut and shaped into something approaching significance. The stuffing leaking from the armrest of the sofa. The delayed ticking of the clock upon the wall that never said the right time no matter how often Mark remembered to replace the battery. The way sunbeams bounced of that same clock face and curled around Roger like a spotlight as he sprawled on that same sofa. Guitar in hand and sober for once, strumming the strings with calloused fingers like the star he wasn't, not anymore.

Talk about fucking irony.

The armchair creaked as Mark shifted his weight, leaning forward to place his coffee mug on the table. Its contents was cold already, a fact he lamented as the mug clinked against April's abandoned one. She'd left candy pink lipstick smears on the ceramic before she went out to do whatever it was that she did to earn money. Mark thought it not wise to ask.

The smell of smoke and dope hung in the air, stagnating in the heat. It clung to the posters of long ago music heroes that littered the walls, Hell's Bells still calling the faithful up the Stairway to Heaven to the Dark Side of the Moon. Mark used all his technical skills to fix the stereo when it broke down, and when Roger and April lost themselves in a chemical haze Mark lost himself in the music Roger used to worship.

Roger swung his feet up onto the table, regardless of his socks that really were beginning to reek. He leant his head against the edge of the sofa as he added his voice to the chords.

"_Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been…"_

Mark tipped his head. "Not really your style, I thought," he questioned, kicking his legs onto the other side of the table. "A little old."

Roger frowned as if Mark was a schoolboy who had failed a simple pop quiz. "Beatles, man. Sixties or no, they're still the fucking greatest band ever."

"All hail Lennon and McCartney." Mark slid his shoulders across until they touched the sunlight, borrowing the edges from Roger. "Well, I guess the other two guys aren't all that bad either."

There was a huff of laughter from Roger as he played a few more chords, mumbling the words under his breath. Eventually Mark joined in, tapping an uneven rhythm on the armrest.

"_Oh, look at all the lonely people…"_

**ii. Strawberry Fields**

The first time Mark spotted April ducking out of Roger's room, he thought she was the usual groupie fare, fucked one day and gone the next. When it became clear that this was not the case, April became a fixture of the loft, an ever-present force like Mark's camera, Roger's guitar and Collins' ashtray.

When she wasn't high or doing things Mark preferred not to think about with Roger, April tucked her legs beneath her on the sofa, showing off rainbow striped socks with a hole in the heel. She slathered her mouth with strawberry flavoured lip-gloss and offered Mark a paper-cut strawberry smile when he passed, almost as if she was apologising for taking up space. He never responded much to her- he could count the number of conversations he'd held with April on one hand- but she was Roger's girlfriend and she was endearing; this girl-woman with the faded orange hair and the quicksilver face.

April made slices of peanut butter toast that were done too much on one side and not enough on the other. He got used to eating them with his coffee while he flopped in the armchair, trying to ignore the smell of strawberry wafting from Roger's room.

**iii. The Fool On The Hill**

Mark used to come along and watch Roger shred the guitar with The Well Hungarians, acting as impromptu roadie more often than not. But The Well Hungarians didn't play nearly as frequently now and instead Roger had taken to spending his Saturdays in the loft, accompanied by heroin dreams and April's glass-wear laugh. Sometimes they would stay in his room for what seemed like days at a time, and Mark would discreetly knock on their door and wait for some signs of movement before reminding them to eat.

Sometimes Roger would open the door, sometimes April, and they greeted him with shivering hands and eyes like coal. They kissed in the sunlight and laughed at the moon, and Mark would watch them under the calming influence of the joint shoved in the corner of his mouth. But then they tensed and became sharp once more, until he thought he would cut himself on their edges if he went too close.

Once Roger slumped as he stood in the doorway, leaning a fist against the frame. His eyes were wild, and for a moment Mark wasn't sure if Roger recognised him. But then Roger's expression shifted, and his fingers waved slightly, and Mark relaxed, even if recognition didn't change a thing.

"Hey, Rog. Long time no see."

"Hey." Roger pushed by him and fell onto the sofa with a groan. "Where's April?"

Mark sighed as settled in his usual armchair. "Dunno. Saw her go out a while a go."

"Oh."

Pushing his glasses further up his nose, Mark reached into his pocket and tossed a slightly melted Mars Bar on Roger's lap. "Here. Lunch."

Roger studied the chocolate as if he'd never seen such a thing before; then tore at the wrapper with a laugh. "I thought we couldn't afford this stuff."

"Yeah, well, sometimes I save up." Mark didn't mention that there always seemed to be money for Roger's smack.

Sunlight glittered on the plastic wrapper as Roger tore it off and sunk his teeth into the Mars Bar. "Mmm…" he mumbled, eyes downcast. "Gooey chocolate goodness."

Mark traced the pattern of the armchair, uneasy. "You know," he ventured, "you'll never become famous if you never play a gig."

Roger lit a joint before tossing the lighter in Mark's direction. "Fine, I'll be notorious then."

Mark shoved a joint of his own into his mouth, chuckling at Roger through the smoke. "You've got to be famous before you become notorious. You can't be notorious if no one knows your name."

**iv. Comfortably Numb**

By rights it should've been Roger who found the body; pale and soft as she floated in her pink pool, strawberry smiles all washed away. But it was Mark, luckless Mark who had that honour, and months later the cruel irony would still make him laugh behind a closed fist.

Collins all but forced Mark to get some rest two days after April was taken away, saying that he would take over watching Roger for the mean time. Mark sighed and pulled the scratchy woollen blanket under his chin, refusing to tell Collins one of the main reasons for his lack of sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he was back in that bathroom, the scene playing before him in as if it were running on the third -hand projector gathering dust in the corner of his room. April, exposed in death as he'd never seen her in life. Whenever he replayed the memory he noticed bits of her that he'd missed the first time round, when he was too busy pulling her out of the tub and yelling for Roger at the top of his lungs. The way her hair floated on the water like seagrass. The bellows of her rib cage. The railroads of scars on her arms.

He had never really known her. The sight in the bathroom told him that.

_Eleanor Rigby died in the night and was buried along with her name…_

A few weeks later and Mark paced with Roger outside the Cat Scratch Club. It wasn't a place they frequented, as most of the time they couldn't afford the drinks anyway, but standing out in the summer night seemed a better option than sharing the loft with April's ghost.

Roger paused in the light of the club sign, as always followed by that eternal spotlight, and Mark found himself searching for evidence of the death sentence in Roger's face, as if the sickness that caused April to open her veins had already taken hold. But Roger stood tall still, his wasted youth only adding to his legend. A figure sketched in neon, _Portrait of a Fuck-Up._

Roger shoved one hand deep into his pockets, the other played absentmindedly with a guitar pick that hadn't been used in months. "I'm gonna get off the smack, Mark. Can't afford to kill myself two ways, not with my luck." His voice was gravel.

Mark nodded in acknowledgement. "Okay." He opened his battered shoulder bag and pulled out his camera, taking a long close up shot of Roger's face. "This is how we begin."


End file.
